Crashing Chloe's Impromptu Slumber Party
by planet p
Summary: Chloe falls asleep in one of the Destiny's labs and is woken by Nicholas, but maybe they both need to get a little sleep.


A freighter rattles passed on the line; bright sparks leap from metal into darkness, behind her eyes. The old house vibrates and shakes; taken ill, eh?

It's hot, God, too hot to slumber. She can't sleep; she's been tossing and turning.

An old French song plays, plundering through her mind, flustered crumbs falling here, falling there, dropping words she tries to pronounce, mouths aloud.

The patina of her day raises insects under her skin, she'd scuffed her toe in her sandals; forgotten to disinfect it, to boot. She leaps, now, into stifling air, and pushes from the mattress: the bathroom!

An old game. "Paramour," she sings, a low hum, not quite melodious to her two ears, "my unlawful lover, long shall I hold you on the parapet, to beating breast, my own true love, wed to another, my beloved; my lover, my beloved; war rages out, rages in, my beloved one."

Reaching bathroom, she hops to the tub, lifts up her leg and rested the bare bottom of her foot upon its rim to examine the scuff. "Mulberry," she sings, "child of _Morus_, be you the berry in my cheeks as my eyes wonder 'pon delectable lips, two lips that make a mouth, your mouth to my mouth; kiss me, delicious; kiss me, collect me to you, hold me in your arms, embrace me, lover."

Around her, the walls tremble and still; the roar of the freighter fades, fades into nothingness chatter, the chatter of a suburban night; city night.

She bends, eyes squinting to make out the scab of blood, encrusted to the stubbed toe; is jolted by a hand that clasps her shoulder as her child's hand to her first child's purse; proud, protective fingers clasping tightly.

Chloe's eyes struggle open, from sleep.

"Open your eyes." The informer's voice is breathy, sleep tired.

Waking from sleep is bright; the voice isn't that of Matthew Scott, she realises. The accent is wrong, Scottish. Eyes sting, her vision swims.

_Brown?_

"Were you dreaming; a nightmare?" Rush asks, peering into her face.

"I was dreaming," she mumbles, the feeling of having been slighted somehow mounting. "A good dream," she adds.

He casts his gaze from her face, glances around them: a laboratory, hardly the sort of place to take a nap. "In that case, I apologise," he tells her.

She rubs her face; her hand is warm on her cheek. She struggles to reacquaint with her limbs, to scrabble to hands and feet.

His hands touch hers, grasping them suddenly, and he pulls her into standing; her feet feel tingly, they'd been contented sleeping as they had been, now they protested the weight.

She blinks. "I think I need to go," she intones. Had he just apologised to her?

He gives a short nod of agreement; she struggles to recall the reason for her being in this particular laboratory.

She turns her head and looks around her; she can't see Eli anywhere.

"Eli has gone; he suggested that we leave you, you'd wake soon enough of your own accord when the discomfort of the floor settled upon you," Rush explains, not as tired now as before.

She moans; 'discomfort' certainly isn't the wrong word. Not only does her neck ache, but her back's putting up its own gripe campaign, and she can't feel her bum.

She wiggles her toes in her shoes. "Which way is that; the crew's personal quarters?"

Rush nods, then, hastily nods to her left.

She guesses that that's the door, he's indicating. She _probably_ should go out that way, she thinks. She narrows her eyes, her eyes sting a bit less. "What are you doing?"

"Working," he replies. He'd be doing something else?

Her throat attempts a laugh; it actually comes out as a cough, then a choke. She gives a big cough, hand over mouth, and blinks with wet eyes. That'd been just the thing she'd needed!

Actually, it hadn't.

Her throat hurts now, too.

"Would you do me the great favour of walking me to my quarters?" she asks. "I'd never live down the embarrassment if I managed to lose myself in my clumsiness. Imagine if they had to mount a rescue." She laughs again; this time it sounds more like a laugh should; at least, it's got to be recognisable as something like a laugh, from what she heard.

The look on Rush's face prompts a re-evaluation; well, she'd not been gagging, if that's what he thought.

"Not too tired to walk, I hope," she says.

A frown appears on his face.

"Obviously, I'm not the only one who's a little wan," she replies, wondering if that's the proper application of the word, in actual fact. It can't be of that great importance, she decides, before her mind has the chance to wander completely from her grasp.

"This way," she encourages, turning on the spot, and finds herself faced, most unhelpfully, a wall. Brushing aside immense bewilderment, she shuffles out a pivot, adjusting her trajectory. "Actually, it's this way."

She turns her chin to glance behind her.

Rush is standing where he'd been before, in exactly the same spot, frowning as though to ask, _What is she doing?_ Then, in reply, _Whatever it is, it doesn't appear to be working._

She shuffles around so that her chin and her body are more or less facing in the same direction. "Are you mute? Am I to take that to mean that you decline? As in, that's a 'no.'" She frowns, and adds, "You know, I could fall asleep here waiting for a reply if you don't say something soon."

He shakes his head.

"Translation?" she presses. "Ooh, I'm a mind reader!"

Rush's eyes narrow.

"Contain yourself," she jokes, "I'm not really a mind reader." She wrangles a mock frown. "What! I don't want to know _that_!"

Rush's expression doesn't change. She wonders if it's a glare or just a serious stare.

"I'm kidding; not a mind reader," she tells him, ended with a heavy sigh. "I need to stop blabbering my mouth off; shutting up equals sleep!" She laughs; come on, it _was_ pretty funny! "Message for Rush, Dr.: Message begins: Chloe's not possessed! Truly! End of message." She chokes out a giggle, and throws out her hands for Rush's arm. "Walk me to my room," she says, with widening eyes, "now."

She needs to stop talking; she's losing it. And what's more, she's losing it in front of the last person she'd ever want to lose it – or anything, for that matter – in front of.

"That would be prudent, I think," Rush replies.

"Gee, thanks, Professor Snape!" she cries, and cracks up into laughter. Oh, crap; why can't she stop laughing?

She's never going to volunteer to keep Eli company in one of Rush's creepy labs again, she decides. She's going to go to bed _in_ her bed, she decides, posthumously.

She lets go of Rush's arm; she doesn't want him getting ideas.

* * *

A few minutes later than a few minutes later, Chloe stops beside Rush, who has decided to stop in the middle of the corridor.

He nods to a door in the wall.

"Are we lost?" she asks. Well, it's a logical question.

"These are your quarters?" he questions.

"They all look the same," she concludes, noticing other doors, now, too. "Maybe we should knock?"

He sighs in exasperation. Maybe they should knock!

"Hey, what if it's… it's someone else's room!" she protests.

"What if it is?" he asks.

She returns her eyes to the door, wide in her face.

He leans over and swipes his hand past the door's sensor. The door slides open.

Chloe's eyes go back to her normal size, then widen again. "It _is_ my room!" she cries.

"So it is," Rush intones.

Chloe races into the room. "Well, bye, I guess," she drops behind her.

The door closes.

Rush turns away from the door silently. After a moment, he sighs heavily. So, he's never doing _that_ again!

He walks away, in the vague direction of his own quarters.

If he can't sleep – for worry that Chloe will get them all killed one day, or get herself killed, which will then be blamed on him – he supposes he'll always have the topic of this Professor Snape person, or thing. How he'd ever clue onto the hidden meaning behind that without incriminating himself as 'non compos mentis' is anyone's guess.

If he does get to sleep, he doesn't like the chances of what he'll be dreaming about. _Ah, no, Miss Armstrong, I don't think that's a very good idea!_

_I _hate_ you! Do you seriously think I'm going to listen to you, person I hate! Ha! You're not thinking straight! Like: No!_

He shakes his head. He really _does_ need to sleep, he decides.

* * *

**I don't own _SGU_, no.**


End file.
